The Summons
by Mari Knickerbocker
Summary: Jendayi is living out her life peacfully until she starts to be plauged by dreams and this unbelivable urge to travel north. reviews welcomed just no flames
1. Prologue

Disclaimer All this belongs to Mercedes Lackey, except for what you don't reconginze which is my own.

Mist surrounded her; she was lost in the mist. Fear welled up in her at the sight of this all too familiar dream. What am I doing here! She screamed inside the vaults of her mind. They said that on the sixth level of the seven hells no one could hear your screams. Well there was a fighting chance of someone hearing you scream there, in your dreams there was no hope. Slowly the mist shifted and changed, unmasking a pleasant looking landscape. A field with rolling green hills dotted here and there with groves of trees. A pleasant scenery to most but it was one that she had come to meet with dread. Any second now they would appear. Right on cue, as if her thoughts had summoned them, off in the distance she saw two figures moving. They appeared walking towards her through the waving knee high grass.

"Well met again, child." The woman dressed from head to toe in the deepest of black greeted her. The woman's voice was kind and gentle but underneath it all was the toughest of steel.

"It has been long since last we met." The other said. He was a little boy with flaming red hair and intensely sapphire eyes.

"It has only been a day," she contested around her fear. She was half-afraid to speak, figuring that talking would only encourage them. It would only confirm the fact that she was going insane. Once she had tried not responding only to see them continue to return.

"Maybe it was not that long for you," the young yet strangely old boy continued. "For us the time has spanned days."

"Days!" she spat, refusing to believe it. "It has been naught but the passing of dawn and dusk. Now here you are again haunting me like the night before," her voice grew quieter, pleading. "Why do you haunt me?"

"Child," the woman said. Her speech was compelling, and the relatively young woman she had come to remonstrate was forced to look her in the eye. Eyes that were eerie to behold, for they were nothing but the expanse of a starry night sky. "Will you answer the summons?"

With those words she heard off in the distance the voice, a voice that she feared above all yet still she yearned to hear it. The deep male voice called out to her, pleading with her and drawing her to him with the simple call of her name.

_:Jendayi…:_


	2. A Decision

She woke with a start fighting the urge to scream. That blasted dream again! Tonight marked the tenth day in a row that Jendayi had been haunted by that particular dream. Haunted was the only way to describe the dreams affect on her. That boy with his overly bright blue eyes, eyes that were entirely too full of wisdom and entirely out of place in that young face; looking into those eyes gave Jendayi gooseflesh and the shivers. Then there was the matter of that woman. At the thought of the woman in her dreams, Jendayi pulled the blankets closer about her, hoping that they would become a protective shield.

That woman with her eerie star filled eyes caused Jendayi to cower so. Yet, her eyes as spooky as they are, was not what Jendayi feared the most about the woman. It was her outfit and by extension, what it signified. It was the deepest of black; a color only worn by Shin'a'in Sword Sworn on the trail of a blood feud. By her eyes and her clothing, Jendayi knew who the lady in her dreams was; there could be no denying her identity now. That woman was her ancestral Goddess known as the Star-Eyed in her aspect as the Warrior.

Jendayi feared the black because the Shin'a'in wore it only when they were on the quest for a blood debt. It was the call of a blood feud that had taken her beloved father away from her. It did not help matters that at the time of her mother's murder she had only been four. When her father did not return for her, she figured that he only loved her mother and that was why he stayed as long as he had. It never occurred to her that he might have died in his quest to revenge his mate's pointless death.

The family that eventually took her in said she had nothing to cry about. After all, Jendayi was only a half-blooded bastard child of some barbaric warrior, it is not like any self respecting Shin'a'in barbarian would accept her. Jendayi had always thought otherwise, that she had only to make her plight known to any self respecting Shin'a'in barbarian and they would have taken her in. Though she had only the example of her father to base such thoughts off, Jendayi would have sworn that most Shin'a'in treasured children. She almost went as far as to run away, except she did not know which clan her father belonged too and more importantly how to find them.

The images from her past the Star-Eyed drudged up were of no matter to her. What scared her, truly, was the fact that it was the Star-Eyed Herself visiting Jendayi in her dreams. The repeated appearance of some deity in your dreams was enough to drive the mad to insanity. Jendayi was beginning to question her own sanity. Despite the fear she had of the Star-Eyed, it was the masculine voice calling from the mists that filled her with absolute terror. That bell toned voice filled with such longing and agony gave her great hesitation. Her dreams were pleading with her to go and become something and Jendayi was not certain if she wanted that.

With a groan and a heavy sigh, she climbed out of bed and headed towards the bathing chamber. After a nice long soak in a tub of hot water, a soak that completely woke her up. She meandered her way back to her bedroom a plan forming in her mind. Jendayi had never thought herself to be an adventurous person; however, she decided it was time she did something about that. So she was going to do something completely out of character, she was going to answer that nagging call in her dreams. It was a choice that could prove risky but Jendayi was sick of being cautious.

There was once a time in her life when she had been reckless and did not give a damn about consequences. But that was back when she was younger and after a particularly nasty life lesson, Jendayi proceeded to cage herself in. Morphing herself into a timid old maid long before her time. Jendayi had not ventured far from her doorstep, or the small village she now lived in, in over a decade. Her sudden cowardness was always part of the discussion down at the local tavern, especially when everyone remembered that she was not from around these parts originally. The thought of being adventurous lead Jendayi to thinking about her one and only adventure in her misbegotten youth.


	3. Shades of Youth

Note to readers: This is a flashbacky like chapter. Enjoy!

Jendayi happened to be fifteen that summer when adventure claimed her. She was young and altogether sick of that sleepy little town near the Anduras River located in southern Jkatha. To her way of thinking she had spent her entire life in the middle of nowhere a very boring middle of nowhere at that. Never in her living memory had she left that sleepy town and she was dying to get out. That summer she was the perfect candidate for a sudden urge to wander. The name of that particular town had been of no importance to Jendayi then, and was even more irrelevant now. She only remembered bits and pieces of her childhood spent by the Anduras.

One thing she knew for certain, her family had become a part of local mythology. Her mother had been the center of controversy, she had (against her families wishes) fell in love with and then married a "bloodthirsty" Shin'a'in nomad. The Goddess however, was not satisfied with only a scandalous marriage; no instead, She made Amaranthe one of those tragic mythical figures of town gossip. Just four years after her scandalous marriage Amaranthe was brutally murdered in front of her young daughter. In one day, Jendayi became an orphan; her mother was dead and her father left town in pursuit of the murders. The rest of her childhood Jendayi spent as a slave to the family that so 'graciously' took her in.

The summer she turned fifteen would be the summer that her life would change for the better, or so she thought. Midsummer festival had always been a big to do for the merchants of town, this year the usual festivities were accompanied by a band of traveling tinkers and acrobats. Jendayi, like ever other youth in town, was completely fascinated by the roving entertainers. One in particular caught and held her undivided attention, Hayden Kadross. In truth, he held the attention of most of the towns' young and not so young women. Although it was Jendayi's that he craved, at least that is what he lead her to believe. Hayden was the perfect specimen of manliness, a blond god. With sun ripened blond hair, a perfectly muscled and tanned body and warm brown eyes that easily melted the heart of every female in the surrounding district. It was even said that those eyes could melt the heart of a Shin'a'in Sword Sworn, and everybody knew that the Sword Sworn never took a lover due to some bond they had with their Goddess. Haydn was the kind of man who could test a Goddess blessed vow and win. To Jendayi's and the other girl's way of thinking Hayden was the handsomest man in the world.

The other girls her age were doomed to be disappointed for out of all the tempting offers Hayden received, he had his eyes set on Jendayi. Perhaps because she was the only one who did not act so obviously smitten with him, the only one who did not view him as a chuck of meat to drool over. She was young but she was not stupid and she was more than aware of Haydn's clandestine meetings with many of the girls and quite a few of the supposedly faithful housewives. One did not spend years as the lowest member of small town society without picking up on those kind of things. Jendayi knew that eventually things would come to a head; some angry father or husband would eventually catch Hayden and whichever mistress in an awkward embrace and the young "god" would be chased out of town.

However, until such a discovery was made, the tinker spent all of his energy during the day trying to convince Jendayi that he loved her. Being fifteen and being chased by a most desirable man, well, it was more than enough to turn the most sensible girl's head. Soon Jendayi's defenses began to crumble and Hayden was able to convince her that what he felt was in fact genuine. Whatever possessed him to put such an effort into this one particular conquest, Jendayi never knew, and in later years she came to suspect that Hayden was a just as baffled as her by it.

As it was, after convincing her of the sincerity of his feelings it was child's play for Hayden to persuade her that he could not live without her. Eventually things reached the point that Jendayi who was now enchanted by the gorgeous acrobat agreed to leave town with him. She thought that it would be her one chance for adventure in life and she would be damned if she was not going to grab it with both hands. Besides, Haydn presented such a handsome looking adventure Jendayi would have been a fool to refuse.


	4. Wash it away

She splashed her face with the cool water from the basin, trying to wash away the memories from a past the would not die, just as she washed away the remaining traces of sleep. Jendayi had been completely smitten with the charming entertainer, a mistake that haunted her for the rest of her youth and adult life. She had thought she was being foolish refusing the handsome adventure that was Haydn for as long as she did. _Turns out I was a fool to accept it…,_ she thought bitterly to herself as she twisted her lips into a sardonic smile, her mind wandering back to that long gone summer.

Hayden finally managed to convince her of his sincerity, the genuineness of his feelings for her just a few weeks before his troupe was planning to leave her town. Jendayi had arranged to be the one to take the laundry down to the Anduras, not only for the family that had taken her in but she also offered to take the linens of most of the town's matrons. She would wait by the next crossing down the riverside road, leaving the laundry and linens half washed for someone else to find.

She waited for him there for what seemed like hours, she almost convinced herself to give up and go back when Hayden finally showed up.

"What took you so long?" She asked the old childhood fear of abandonment making her voice harsh. He looked at her sharply then climbed down from the wagon he was seated on.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting my dear," he began his voice deceitfully calm, "it takes a while to leave one's family." Jendayi began apologizing for her outburst almost immediately at the hurt look in his brown colored eyes. She had to remind herself to be grateful that he had seen something in her to begin with; he had even decided to take his wagon and leave his troupe something that she knew must have cast him, all for her.

Despite that rather auspicious start to their time together, they spent many blissful moons traveling wherever the roads lead them throughout all of Jkatha that summer. They even roamed through the surrounded countries when Jkatha became too familiar. Neither one of them decided where to go next; they left that up to the oxen that pulled their wagon.

For Jendayi those summer months were heaven, just the adventure she had been dreaming of all her life. She soon became convinced that Hayden, her first great love, would become and remain the love of her life. She was content in that knowledge and naïve as she was, Jendayi failed to notice that Hayden did not share the same conviction.

For Hayden Jendayi was merely another notch on his belt rope, nothing else and nothing more, one that was increasingly becoming an inconvenience for him. He had spent all that time wooing her because he thought it would be convenient to have a girl travel with him. That way he would be guaranteed a little fun every night without having to go looking far for it. It was the reason why he had chosen Jendayi; he had heard the stories about her mother and figured that the daughter would be just as promiscuous. The way the villagers had talked about Jendayi lead him to believe that he was right in thinking so.

However, Jendayi had proven to be a prude. Moreover, after Hayden had finally convinced her to share his bed she became too attached to him. Alarmingly so. Soon the charm of having his own personal toy was outweighed by the girl's attachment to him. He began to look for a way out.

Hayden began to distance himself from her, and when she became confused, hurt, and eventually desperate he used her as a way to justify what he was doing. When that failed to drive her off, Hayden resorted to sleeping around, hoping that she would catch him in the act. Eventually she did more than once actually, however, Jendayi proved not only to be naïve about his feelings for her but also forgiving of his betrayals. Hayden continued down his path of debauchery, pulling both himself and Jendayi into misery.

Jendayi was wounded by Hayden's growing restlessness and she had no idea how to reconcile him to her; moreover, she blamed herself for his sudden change in behavior towards her. He was the first man she had ever loved, and she reasoned that her inexperience had created the rift between them; never once thinking that he could be blamed. Despite the weeks of emotional abuse and the threat of physical violence, she continued to stay with him. Praying that everything would work out, she did not want to face the idea of leaving him. Where would she go, whom could she turn to in need? No one. There was no one for Jendayi, no one but Haydn. He was her life now.

As the summer turned to autumn, Haydn proclaimed himself permanently bored of Jkatha and they crossed the southern border of Rethwellan. By now, he had taken up drinking as well as sleeping with every barmaid he came across. The physical abuse had been well under way for months now. Jendayi did not leave dubious protection of the wagon without being fully clothed, hiding every bruise. Still she could not bring herself to leave him.

It was in Rethwellan that the remains of their tattered relationship fell apart. Jendayi's patience had reached its breaking point and she began to suspect that Hayden did not deserve her. Bleeding from her broken heart, she confronted him one night, venting her rage, jealousy, confusion, and agony at him with the backing of her exceptionally strong lungs. Jendayi doubted that her yells went unheeded, even camped on the outskirts of town as they were. It was the first time that Hayden had been relatively somber for the past moon, and his reply was not only heartless but also perfectly calculated to shatter whatever self-esteem Jendayi possessed. Years later, she would still remember what he had said word for word.

"How dare you believe that I ever loved you," he told her with a sneer, leering at her through blood shot eyes, eyes that she once could loose herself in but now she feared them. "You my dear," he continued hiccupping, "why you were nothing more but a diversion and a very poor one at that. I have had my fill of you wench, now why don't you spare yourself the embarrassment and leave. Perhaps some heap brothel will take you in; you are after all a pretty wench. They would be glad to have you unskilled as you are. It would be a suiting occupation for you, your mother was a prostitute, and they said you took after her."

He paused there to take a long swig from his current mug of ale. Jendayi tried to find the words to fight back but her mind had been numbed by his enraged attack.

"No wonder your father left after she died," Hayden said twisting the knife further into her, "there was nothing there to entertain him anymore. Piety she did not live long enough to teach you a trick or two. You could have used the schooling."

At those words, something inside Jendayi snapped and she flew at him in a rage. The last thing she remembered was his eyes widening in alarm.

She woke up a few days later to find herself lying in a strange bed, her head bandaged and her arm in a sling. Of Hayden and her life with him, there was nothing to be found. Jendayi spent the rest of her life wondering what happened to him that day. Did he leave her or had she killed him?


End file.
